I probably shouldn’t publish this, because it could very well end with me getting scolded about how all of our meetings are very important and I should be paying attention to learn all the crucial intricacies of our business for better leveraging low-hanging fruit in the marketplace of the…

See, now I’m boring myself. And meetings scheduled in the middle of a pretty busy day, when the Mets are playing — even if it’s an otherwise meaningless Spring Training game — are terribly frustrating.

I had one of those and I don’t have a DVR at my desk, so I missed a good hour in the middle of the game today. Cerrone’s got a DVR at his desk and wasn’t at the office, so I guess I could have used his. But his TV isn’t as nice as the one at my desk, and I really couldn’t bring myself to watch an hour of already-played meaningless baseball on a pitiful little screen.

So I missed Jack Egbert’s entire uninspiring appearance in the Mets’ 8-4 loss to the Astros. ‘Tis a pity.

I did see all of Johan Santana’s effort. I’m sure someone somewhere will make too much of the fact that he was hit hard, since Santana allowed six hits and four runs and couldn’t get out of the second inning, but it’s Spring Training, and Santana said he felt good after his first game action coming off arm surgery, and that’s all that matters.

If you’re tempted to think Spring Training stats should count for a whole lot, consider this: Astros first baseman Geoff Blum went 4-for-4 in the affair and is now hitting .538 for the Spring. And Geoff Blum has a .697 career OPS. Everyone’s at a different spot in his preseason conditioning, the competition is all over the map, players are tinkering with certain aspects of their games, and sample sizes are tiny. The output — the actual numbers produced in Spring Training games — mean nothing.

Calling the games entirely pointless, though, is likely a bit overblown. Since the managers and GMs and organizational scouts are, in theory, watching these games to assess the talents of the players on the field and will likely partly base roster decisions off those assessments, we can try to do the same. The problem is, without reliable stats to guide us, and without any actual training in scouting, our eyes have a tendency to see what we already believe to be true.

For instance: It certainly looks to me like neither Alex Cora nor Luis Castillo really has the range to be a Major League middle infielder at this point. And man is that frustrating, knowing what I know about how Mike Pelfrey has been hammered in the press for his supposed psychological issues.

The Astros rolled out some Double-A guy named Wladimir Sutil at shortstop who made a great diving play moving to his left to start a double play. Cora dove in vain for one that wasn’t even hit too hard.

That’s a miniscule sample. I’m just sayin’s all. It’s just frustrating. If you’re going to have backup infielders who can’t really hit, it’d be nice if they could defend.

OK, moving on: Clint Everts’ breaking ball moves a lot. So that’s cool.

Jason Pridie made a nice running catch in right field in the ninth, then turned and nailed the cutoff man, who clearly doubled off Kody Clemens at first base. Clemens was ruled safe, probably because his pops was in the house and the ump feared the Rocket’s rep. But the ump should have made the right call, since that story was a big misunderstanding and Roger probably wasn’t fired up for this Spring Training game.

Ike Davis hit a home run to straightaway center, and the legend grows. He also struck out thrice. That part will get glossed over by legend.

David Wright pulled a homer. Josh Thole hit a couple of warning track doubles.

Mike Jacobs walked twice, and has now walked five times in 13 Grapefruit League plate appearances.

Finally, Astros reliever Samuel Gervacio cracks me up. He does this weird thing before he starts his delivery — it looks like he’s showing the ball to the opposing team’s third base coach, like he’s about to perform a magic trick and is assuring the crowd that it’s a regular baseball he’s about to make disappear.

Then he abruptly turns to the batter as if completely startled by the fact that there’s someone standing there waiting for him to pitch, interrupting the magic show he’s performing for the third-base coach and the fans along the left-field line.

He’s pretty good; he struck out 11.2 batters per nine innings in the Minors and I imagine he’ll end up a closer eventually, so you’ll probably see a lot more of his strange performance. But it’s still novel now, so I’ll enjoy it until some team better than the Astros scoops him up and he’s using it to dominate the Mets in the future.

One of the big stories coming out of Port St. Lucie this year is the battle among a slew of pitchers to become the Mets’ new eighth-inning guy in the presumed absence of the injured Kelvim Escobar, who everyone thought would be the Mets’ eighth-inning guy.

I missed something here, something big. I missed when it became common, accepted fact that all teams need a dedicated “eighth-inning guy” to only pitch the eighth inning. Did someone make some decree? Was I blissfully burying my head in the sand?

I know about the closer. I know all teams, for some reason, need one guy who pitches the ninth inning when his team is leading by three or fewer runs, and that he should not be used in the eighth inning, and never, ever when the game is tied or his team is losing. That makes sense; every team needs someone to accumulate as many saves as possible, or something.

But only in the last couple of years have I learned of this other necessary component of good bullpens: the bridge. The Mets have been searching in vain for the bridge since Duaner Sanchez searched in vain for Dominican food that fateful night in 2006. Aaron Heilman was not the bridge. Roberto Hernandez was not the bridge. J.J. Putz was not the bridge.

Look: I recognize that pitchers — like anyone — prefer to know what job they’ll be asked to perform when they show up at work. And far be it for me, with my spreadsheets and calculators, to point to the days not too long ago when late-inning relievers would regularly throw upwards of 90 innings a season. Game’s changed now.

But it strikes me, as it has for a while now, that there’s got to be a better way. If I were managing a ballclub, I’d want my best reliever in the game in the highest-leverage situation. If that happened to come in the sixth inning, after the starting pitcher grew tired and walked a couple of guys in a tie game, would I be smart to bring in one of the worst pitchers on my staff because I’m reserving a better one for the eighth inning, when he’ll come in with no one on base?

Anyhow, putting that rant aside, as long Jenrry Mejia’s excluded from the big-league bullpen come Opening Day, the Mets will have taken a better approach to building a relief corps this year then they did last year, the offseason of Omar’s much lauded two closers.

Certainly there will be uncertainty. Ryota Igarashi has yet to pitch in real games stateside. Kiko Calero gets hurt a lot. Bobby Parnell is still pretty young, and walks a lot of guys. Who knows when Escobar will be ready? What’s up with Clint Everts, and Hisanori Takahashi and Fernando Nieve, assuming they don’t land in the rotation?

But in collecting a slew of relatively low-risk, high-upside guys — many of whom have potential for a lot of strikeouts, to boot — the Mets will likely be able to find a good mix of effective relievers.

And it’s not as simple as saying, “oh, throw enough [expletive] against the wall, some of it’s bound to stick.” They tried that in 2008, recall, and nothing stuck. It’s a matter of finding the right [expletive], and — and maybe this is blind, Mets-fan optimism — I think it’s a much stickier brand this year.

That’s gross, and I apologize. The point is, no matter how much speculation you read about how and where Pitcher X fits into the Mets’ crowded bullpen, know that the team is better off because of that crowd.

Some guys will crack the Opening Day roster, some won’t. I’ll probably obsess over it like I do ever year, but it won’t matter, since the front office will inevitably tinker until it settles on the right mix. What actually matters is that, if just a couple of the big-upside arms stay healthy and pitch to their potential, the Mets should have a better bullpen than they’ve had in several years.

And this, without having acquired two closers.

TiVo delayed because I was at the gym, refining my chiseled physique:

It will be hilarious if, after the Mets’ much-ballyhooed and ultimately unsuccessful pursuit of Bengie Molina and concurrent stockpiling of lesser catchers this offseason, Omir Santos can find a way to harness good timing and great fortune to sneak his way onto the Major League roster to open the 2010 season.

When people like me point to metrics like batting average in balls in play, or a player’s history to argue that he has gotten lucky in a game or a month or a season, the suggestion assumes that the player’s luck will balance out, that he will endure similar stretches of misfortune or at the very least normal amounts of luck soon, and will not continue being inordinately blessed.

We almost never consider the possibility that Omir Santos might just be the luckiest man in the universe.

If Santos’ well-struck sinking liner in the second inning today was hit three feet to the right, it might have been swallowed up by Nationals third baseman Alberto Gonzalez and turned into a rally-killing double play, all but wasting a bases-loaded opportunity for the Mets.

Instead, it scooted down the foul line and connected with a wheel on the bottom of the wall in foul territory along the third-base line. It bounced into a tiny gap between the wall and the ground but — and this is important — pretty clearly did not get lodged there.

Regardless, Nats left fielder Willy Taveras determined the hit should be a ground-rule double, but could not appropriately raise both his arms to signify that opinion, probably because when Willy Taveras sees a baseball, his instincts tell him to swing at it, no matter what the situation.

No umpire ruled the ball dead, so Santos — and all three men in front of him — just kept running as Taveras leisurely found the ball and returned it to the infield. By the time it got there, Santos had scored on an inside-the-park grand slam, something that hasn’t happened in an actual Major League game since 1999.

That was pretty much the highlight of the Mets’ 6-5 win over Washington. Oliver Perez walked the first batter he faced, then threw mostly strikes. Sadly, he was punished for it, allowing seven hits and five runs over three innings, but the good news is none of them actually count. And Ollie was hitting the low 90s on SNY’s gun, a good sign so early in the Spring considering the way he struggled to hit even those speeds before he was shut down last season.

Hisanori Takahashi flummoxed the crap out of the Nationals’ hitters, striking out six and allowing one hit and no walks over three innings, earning the win. Takahashi had good movement on his breaking stuff but doesn’t throw particularly hard — he topped out in the high 80s — and I couldn’t tell if the Nats were struggling with his pitch selection and control or being thrown by the little hesitation-delay Takahashi does in the middle of his delivery.

Pat Misch threw an effective three innings in a very Pat Mischy (Pat Mischious?) fashion. Ike Davis smacked a double but got caught off third base when he bluffed like he was going to tag up and go home on a fly to left. It’s funny; Davis — for all the talk of his polish — seems like he’s bidding for the “hitting savant” stigma that Daniel Murphy is working to shed, at least based on his play in all these meaningless games.

I don’t read too much into Davis’ run of errors at first or the baserunning blunder, naturally. I just find it entertaining that Murphy might now get the reputation as the better fundamentals guy.